Development of Crash Injury Protection in Civil Aviation

Abstract

It was not until the late 19th century that manned flight in heavier-than-air craft became a reality. One of the leading aeronauts of that time was Otto Lilienthal, a German engineer, who designed and built several manned gliders between 1891 and his death in a glider crash in 1896. He made over 2,000 gliding or soaring flights, mostly from a specially constructed hill at Lichterfelde, near Berlin. Lilienthal authored several works on the theory and practice of flight. These provided important data and guidance for aspiring aeronauts. Octave Chanute, a railway and bridge engineer and mentor of several hopeful aviators in the United States, provided extensive details of Lilienthal’s work in his book Progress in Flying Machines.28 Lilienthal’s belief in quick escape in case of emergency was presented as a rule: “The aviator must be so affixed to his apparatus that he can detach himself instantly should the machine take a sheer.”28 When Chanute sponsored glider tests, he followed Lilienthal’s advice, specifying:

The operator should in no wise be attached to the machine. He may be suspended by his arms, or sit upon a seat, or stand on a running board, but he must be able to disengage himself instantly from the machine should anything go wrong, and be able to come down upon his legs in landing.34

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